Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 for his translation of 103 poems from Bengali into English into a volume titled, Gitanjali: Song Offerings (1912). Trivedi's talk, "Tagore in the Age of Extraction," challenged the historical frame through which Rabindranath Tagore is typically understood by highlighting 19th and 20th century capitalist and colonial extraction that led to his critique of nationalism in 1917. The lecture provided a critical framework for the performance of two of Tagore's plays, Rakto Karabi, or Red Oleanders (1925) and Tasher Desh, or The Land of Cards (1934), which were critical of capitalist and fascist power.
Tagore visited the United States five times between 1912 and 1930 and gave his first public lecture in English at a Unitarian Church in Urbana. Trivedi's lecture was delivered in that same location and at the lectern from which the Nobel Laureate addressed his first American audience.
